


Kernel Panic

by runningondreams



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Insomnia, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Recovery, early morning conversations, relationship-building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 12:39:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11059161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runningondreams/pseuds/runningondreams
Summary: Ryder can't sleep. Gil tries to help.(Contains spoilers for the Hunting the Archon questline.)





	Kernel Panic

**Author's Note:**

> A short, pre-romance, relationship-building fic for Gil and Ryder. Contains spoilers for the Hunting the Archon questline. Many thanks to @dipsykoo, @laireshi and @morphia-writes for alpha reading and beta help. This fic was originally posted [to my tumblr here](http://imaginaryelle.tumblr.com/post/161298005615/fic-kernel-panic).

When Gil slips out of the bunkroom and turns toward the galley he’s momentarily stymied by the appearance of the pathfinder lying on the upper walkway. His legs and bare feet are hanging down just a smidge too close to head-kicking height for comfort.

Gil almost reaches out, almost traces along the flow of ankle to toes, but stops halfway through the motion. There’s a line there, and in his waking hours he’s not sure he’s welcome on the other side yet. Most days it’s a line he can’t even _see_ , Ryder keeps himself so bottled up. Gil rubs his eyes instead, wondering if maybe his head isn’t quite clear of heavy dreams, but Ryder’s still there, prone on the glass in loose pants and a hoodie with his arms spread wide, staring up at the ceiling and doing some sort of meditative...thing with his fingers, like he’s counting them off with this thumbs, over and over.

It looks more nervous than relaxing. It’s probably not supposed to be done as fast as he’s doing it.

“Hey, Ryder,” he says, keeping his voice low enough to not wake the others.

“Hi Gil,” is Ryder’s response.

“You’re up early.”

“Is it early?” Ryder asks. “I haven’t really… slept. I guess.”

“Are you… doing okay?” Gil’s not particularly used to talking to people this soon after waking up, and his brain’s not quite working right yet, but he’s pretty sure this has never happened before. Ryder keeps some odd hours sometimes, but not like this. This is more _Gil’s_ thing.

“Not really,” Ryder says, and Gil can tell he’s trying for flippant but he doesn’t quite pull it off.

Suvi or Lexi would probably say something like _Want to talk about it?_ here, but Gil’s pretty sure Ryder doesn’t respond well to that on the best of days. He ducks around Ryder’s feet and continues his walk to the galley instead, throwing “I’m making coffee if you want some,” over his shoulder.

He’s rather gratified when it pays off, though how the hell Ryder manages to be so damn quiet making a ten-foot drop he’s got no idea. He pulls down what he’s almost certain is Ryder’s favorite mug and fills it before his own, because so there Vetra, he _can_ _too_ be a gentleman when he wants.

Face to face, Ryder’s got a hollow-eyed look Gil doesn’t like. He slumps against the counter, just holding the mug, face in the steam and eyes trained on the contents like maybe it can tell him something.

Gil drinks his coffee. Ryder doesn’t move. His shoulders curl in around his chest like a shell. It’s a position Gil recognizes from some of his lower moments, when he can’t maintain his mental shield further outside his skin. He breathes, slow and steady. The only sound is the hum of the engines through the decks.

Gil finishes his coffee and casts around for something to say.

“Are you gonna drink that, or…?”

It’s the wrong thing, probably. Ryder hands back the mug and drums his fingers on the countertop. He keeps looking around like he expects something to jump out from behind the built-in cabinets or something, and Gil ends up standing there and silently drinking a second cup of coffee that he doesn’t really want because he can’t quite bring himself to _leave_ Ryder like this but he’s not quite sure what else to do if the man doesn’t invite him in. He’s just about to says something stupid like, _I think there’s something brewing between us_ , or _Did you get this tired running through my dreams all night_ when Ryder says, “I keep thinking, if I close my eyes, if I fall asleep, I won’t wake back up again.”

 _Shit_.

“This about that mess with the Archon?” Gil asks. Ryder shrugs with this little grimace, like maybe yes, maybe no, but it’s been what—a week, at most? A few days? Gil’s grasp of time hasn’t been exactly stellar lately, but it can’t have been that long.

“It’s stupid,” Ryder says.

Gil gives him the most incredulous look he can muster.

“You think worrying about dying after you literally died is stupid? I mean, I might not be the best voice of rationality on this ship but even I’m pretty sure that’s about as normal a reaction as possible.”

Ryder shrugs again, not really looking at him, which is actually really fucking annoying because Ryder _always_ looks at him. Really looks, like maybe he wants to know more than _will the Nomad be ready for Elaadan tomorrow_ , or _so when’s the next crew-wide poker game?_

Gil hadn’t been there, obviously. Sneaking onto enemy ships is a bit outside his purview, especially when he could instead be prepping a quick getaway, but Vetra had been pretty rattled after. _“He just—fell_ ,” she’d said, her hands clenching and unclenching restlessly. _“And then SAM couldn’t even get his heart going again on the first try. For a second I thought, ‘that’s it, it’s over, we’re all dead. We just don’t know it yet.’”_

He’s _glad_ he wasn’t there. Ryder, here, alive and nervy with his hair pressed into weird shapes and his wrinkled sweatshirt hanging from slumped shoulders, is only a dim reflection of his usual self. Gil doesn’t want to think about what Heleus would look like without even this tiny sliver of hope and light.

He needs something to do with his hands, something to stop him just reaching out and poking holes in whatever trust they’re building here.

“Want to come hang out in engineering?” he asks. “I guarantee I can keep you better distracted than whatever it was you were doing earlier.”

“Meditating,” Ryder says. “Well, trying to anyway.”

“Yeah, that looked super relaxing,” Gil drawls. “Come on, I’ll tell you about the time I jury-rigged a derelict on the fly during a live firefight and you can tell me how many laws of physics you’re planning to break tomorrow. It’ll be like shore leave, but with better acoustics.”

He _does_ tell the derelict story. And the busted up hovercraft story, and the one about the elcor in the elevator. Ryder doesn’t quite laugh but he does at least smile a few times, and by the time Gil’s gotten himself elbow deep into system checks on the Nomad’s drive-train he’s looking significantly more relaxed. The little crease between his eyebrows smooths away and he’s actually let himself lean into a halfway comfortable-looking position against a few of the munitions storage crates.

There’s a bit of a lull while Gil tries to rid the wheels of any lingering vestige of Kadara’s noxious mud, and he’s just about to suggest that a helping hand from the person _responsible_ for the mess wouldn’t go amiss when Ryder says, “I know it won’t happen. The dying thing. I do trust SAM. It’s not like I think it’s a real risk. Rationally. Not that I could do anything about it either way, but…”

“Well, you could always get SAM out of your head,” Gil says. Ryder’s giving him this _I don’t think you understand_ look, and he shrugs. “I’m not saying it’s a _good_ option, but you do still have a choice there. You could sever the connection with SAM and trust yourself to the wonders of slightly less-cutting edge medicine if you wanted to. And sure, we’d probably be down a pathfinder and out our best shot at actually making this place livable, but that’s about everyone else. Not you.”

Ryder shakes his head. “I don’t think I could do that. I mean, even if I could survive the process I don’t think I’d _want_ to do it. The things we do, being the pathfinder and setting up the vaults and everything...” he drops his gaze to his hands, fidgeting on his knees. “I don’t think I could go back to anything else. Sometimes I feel like I’ve waited my whole life to do this. Does that sound weird?”

Gil grins, part reflex, part incredulity, because they both know he doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing with his own life most days. “You’re asking me?”

“Yeah,” Ryder says, and he meets Gil’s eyes properly this time. “I guess I am. I mean, my dad _died_ giving me this job. How fucked is it that I feel like it’s what I’m meant for?”

For a moment all Gil can think is _be careful what you wish for_ , which is pretty useless as far as advice goes and doubly annoying because it’s at least half self-recriminatory reaction to finally getting Ryder’s attention in any sort of serious way. The guy just looks even younger than usual, and so _vulnerable_ with his bare feet and trailing pantcuffs and that needy look in his eyes. And then he thinks, _Shit, Gil, fucking say something you idiot._

He starts with, “I can’t speak for your dad, obviously,” and grasps for more words. “From what I’ve heard, it doesn’t seem like anyone really can, but I _do_ know that you’ve done some pretty impossible things since you got here and it’s doing a lot of people a lot of good. And it seems to me that if you find meaning in that, if that’s what gets you through the day and helps you find your own peace, who cares what anyone else thinks? You find your purpose, you don’t let that go for anything. That’s how it’s supposed to work, right?”

Ryder chews on his lip for a moment, looking confused.

“Huh,” he says.

“What. Did I garble something in there? Did it not make sense? Because I’ve been known to not make sense sometimes.”

“No, it’s—I think you’re right,” he says. “I just didn’t expect it. From you.”

Gil thinks he might be a little offended by that, but then Ryder smiles again, soft and sweet, and he says, “Thanks, Gil.”

“Sure—uh, sure thing.” Gil clears his throat. “Anytime.”

“Got any more stories?” Ryder asks, and Gil starts off on the first thing that pops into his head because there’s no way he’s saying no _now,_ and that’s how he ends up regaling the human pathfinder with the rather cliche tale of his personal first contact adventure, aka that time he hadn’t realized his batarian poker partner was in the Blue Suns until _after_ he’d taken all the guy’s money.

The next time he looks over Ryder’s asleep against the crates, curled in on himself with his knees pulled up to his chest and his head pillowed on his arms. When Gil looks back at his datapad, trying to decide if he has time to strip off his gloves and go find a blanket before the final checks start chiming completion, there’s a message from SAM in the bottom corner.

 _Thank you,_ blinks in blue and white.

 _I didn’t do it for you,_ he sends back.

 _And yet I am still grateful,_ SAM replies. _The pathfinder’s continued good health is my utmost concern, but I cannot offer the emotional support an organic being might provide. It is good to know that others are willing to intervene on his behalf._

Gil can’t really think of a good comeback for that, so he busies himself with wiping down the headlights. When the chime finally goes off he mutes it quickly and double-checks the readouts, and hesitates.

 _Thanks for bringing him back_ , he types, and then he pulls off his gloves and goes to find a blanket, because ‘taking care of the pathfinder’ is apparently part of his job description now.

Ryder sleeps, barely stirring when the blanket settles over him, and for the first time in months, Gil lets himself dream.


End file.
